Man Boards Flight Using Someone Else's Expired Boarding Pass

Last week, a Nigerian man was able to board a Virgin America flight from NYC to L.A. without presenting valid ID and a boarding pass that not only didn’t belong to him, but was for a flight from the previous day.

According to CBS, the passenger went unnoticed until a flight attendant did an in-flight check of the seats and spotted him in a seat that should have been empty. He showed the attendant the boarding pass, which belonged to a traveler who claimed it had gone missing on his way to the airport the day before, and a college ID.

The man was questioned by authorities in Los Angeles and then released. But his story doesn’t end there.

From CBS:

Days later, investigators say he went back to LAX and tried to board a Delta flight to Atlanta.

This time, he was searched and airport officials found 10 expired boarding passes in his bag , none of them in his name.

Meanwhile, the TSA is downplaying the incident, saying that the plane was safe because the passenger had been screened before heading to the gate.

“Every passenger that passes through security checkpoints is subject to many layers of security including thorough physical screening at the checkpoint,” said a rep for the agency. “TSA’s review of this matter indicates that the passenger went through screening.”

But isn’t part of the screening to check a person’s ID against the boarding pass? If the screeners missed the fact that his boarding pass was for the wrong person and date, what else didn’t they notice while he strolled through security?